


The Fight Will End

by badboy_fangirl



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7315870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badboy_fangirl/pseuds/badboy_fangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A kaleidoscope of Michael’s feelings and impressions of Dr. Sara Tancredi, and an ending more in keeping with what they deserve. [Written post 3x04, head in a box.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fight Will End

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for the end of this fic came from an interview with Wentworth Miller where he said we'd never see these two characters swinging in a hammock together. Oh, Wentworth, how I love you, but I must disagree.
> 
>  
> 
> A piece of my personal fanon: I believe Michael knew about Sara's time in rehab and her drug use for two reasons:
> 
> One, in the Pilot he says to her, "I'm the farthest thing from a junkie" ...to me it's the way he says it, the tone and inflection that imply that he knows she was a junkie. 
> 
> When Bellick spills the beans about Sara's overdose, Michael gets angry, and seems surprised that she almost died. I never took that as surprise that she had a drug habit at all, because when he calls her to apologize, his guilt is so thick, to me it wreaked of him knowing her previous problem but never taking into account that it would become a problem for her again.
> 
> I'm not saying my idea is the only plausible one, it's just the one I've had ever since the 1st season, and then felt confirmed during the 2nd. And that's the backstory I generally choose to use when writing M/S with any references to the overdose or her drug habit.
> 
> I do know that it's widely thought Sara's father would have done everything to bury the story about her, and I do think that's a possibility; I also happen to think Michael's research was so thorough, he might have found it in the most obscure place. JMHO.

  
_Panama just never had the same appeal after Sona._  
~from _"What the Future Holds"_ by happywriter06

He remembers when he stumbled over the tidbit in his research. The small article he’d found on a piece of microfiche at the public library he later determined her father had made sure was in the smallest print in the farthest back, least-read section of the newspaper.

Before he’d found that, he’d had the inane, fleeting thought that, statistically speaking, she seemed like a perfect match for him—her level of profession, her humanitarian efforts, her level of education. When he discovered the information that she had been in rehabilitation for drug addiction, he’d had the firm thought that they were even more similar.

He also remembers thinking he understood her, and that he could use it to his advantage. Her addiction was harmful, but his own—Lincoln—whether harmful or not had to be had. He couldn’t live without it—he couldn’t live without trying. She had recovered and gone on to lead a good life. Once he had Lincoln out of Fox River, he would follow her example.

In the meantime, however, he'd stored away the knowledge of their similarities, knowing it would be useful, and necessary, to employ at some point.

Now, he knows all his thoughts could never have prepared him in anyway for lying in a hammock with her in Baja.

 

 

"Don’t make me lie to you," he breathed, the throbbing pain in his foot fogging his brain so much, he knew he had to put up some sort of defense. Three days inside Fox River, three days of seeing Dr. Sara Tancredi in person, and already the machinations he’d planned seemed so wrong. He’d never known a woman he wanted to tell the truth to so much, except maybe his own mother, but that was because she had been able to look right through any lies he might tell about his older brother anyway. Before she’d died, he had embraced the fact that he was known so well, that his mom could look across the room at him and see if he was telling a lie. It was with great trepidation he realized he wanted Sara to know him in that same way.

It had been instantaneous though with her easy laughter and her sharp wit. Her brown eyes seemed to catch so much, though he knew she didn’t understand all the inconsistencies she was seeing. He couldn’t afford to be vulnerable with her, and right now with blood gushing from where his toes had once been, he had to hold on to his thoughts, he had to stick to the plan.

He had to lie to her as little as possible.

 

 

Lifting her to safety in the ceiling crawl space, he ached with wanting to wrap his arms around her until the trembling stopped, hers yes, but his own as well. The fear he’d felt when he’d seen her on that small video screen had swamped him into action. He knew the odds of ever holding her were less likely than him and Lincoln escaping from Fox River, but it didn’t change his desire any.

As she slid from the rafters into his waiting hands, an all-to-brief moment that seemed to last a lifetime, he longed to pull her closer. His awareness of her had always been acute, but it sharpened in those short moments, the sweaty heat of both their bodies heightening his senses. A raw, somewhat terrifying desire to press his mouth to hers plagued him for a lightening second, amplifying the reason he had gone to find her in the first place.

As he dove to the floor to avoid a sniper’s bullet and she ran out the door to safety, he thought of how well matched they would have been, if he’d stayed who he was. Now, he was a bad guy, and he suspected before they actually escaped, he would only get worse in her eyes.

 

Her response to his kiss overwhelmed him. He’d suspected she shared what he felt—after all that had been his primary objective—but he hadn’t expected the expression of that feeling to engulf him with stupidity. He couldn’t believe the words, “Wait for me,” had come out of his mouth, or that he’d meant them so sincerely, or that he’d felt a crushing disappointment in her only plausible answer.

He knew it was crazy; he knew that nothing could be more important than getting Lincoln out of Fox River, and tonight had to be the night, and yet when it had come right down to it, he’d lost his purpose, he hadn’t gotten what he needed from her.

Only, maybe he had. Gotten something from her he never knew he needed—and now he faced an entire lifetime of knowing what he was missing.

 

 

Standing in the infirmary with her, with _that look_ on her face, made him feel very much like a small child who was about to be punished. Her anger—so visible in her visage and body language—didn’t need to be demonstrated by her mouth opening and words coming out. But he did the only thing he could think of; the only thing that he felt was likely to overcome her anger in a moment of pondering.

He told her the truth.

"I’m getting my brother out of here. Tonight. And I need your help."

This last ditch effort was the one part of the plan he had known he could never fail on. He could never tell anyone what he was going to do except the people he chose to take with him. Of course, that had failed so long ago with the first ‘joiner’ they’d had to the crew, when people he would never in a million years associate with piggy-backed into the escape with them. Too many unforeseen obstacles, turn abouts, feelings he knew he shouldn’t have, but yet here he was pleading with her for his brother’s life, willing her to understand.

He didn’t have time to convince her of his feelings for her; he only had a few moments to insist that she consider Lincoln’s life and its value. His all-consuming thought as he left her there was that if she remained unmoved by his plea, he would have lost them both, permanently. 

 

 

Clutching the phone to his ear, he begged, "Please don’t hang up on me." He’d never been more honest; he felt stripped down, his heart beating somewhere outside of his body. The idea that she’d nearly died would have been hard enough to bear, but knowing it was his fault, and worrying that she might not even speak to him lacerated everything inside him.

Finally he just said what he’d known from nearly the beginning; he’d known it so well, sometimes when he reflected on it, it was almost like he’d known it since he first read the newspaper articles about her and stole pages from local yearbooks, before he even knew her hair was the most beautiful shade of red he would ever see. "It was real, Sara. You and me, it’s real."

 

 

"My father is dead," she stated emphatically.

He should have realized that his ‘plan’ would be less than satisfying to her, even if her father hadn’t been another casualty of the ever-growing list of the departed. He turned away, unable to look at her as he processed another brutal blow, another nail in the coffin of his guilt. It had been a ridiculous plan, he could see that now; not the plan for Sara to run away with him—that was probably the best idea he’d ever had—but the plan to get Lincoln out of prison and thinking it would be so simple. To think he could execute everything perfectly and they could just disappear into Panama without anyone else being affected was ridiculous. He’d known someone framed Lincoln, he should have realized anything he did to free him would cause serious repercussions. 

Some things, you just couldn’t plan for.

As Sara’s soft hands deftly disinfected and bandaged his arm while they sat in a small motel room later that day, he couldn’t help but feel the blood heat everywhere in his body, even though she touched him only briefly, and only on the forearm. He slid his own fingers down her arm, surrounding her wrist so chastely she would never have known how much he wanted her right then. But he settled for what he could get. 

"I know you’ve heard this before, but it won’t always be like this," he said, though he had the vague, discomforting feeling that it _would_ always be like this for him. A moment in her presence would seem like being awarded an audience with a queen; the grandest and most humbling experience of his life, repeated every time he got anywhere near her. He wanted to get so much closer, until there was nothing between them, no lies, no conspiracies, and most especially, no clothes.

He heard the imploring quality of his voice as he told her the plan—the meeting at Bolshoi Booze with Linc and LJ—but she wouldn’t look in his eyes. He wasn’t surprised to find her gone a few minutes later, but the thought that he’d never see her again nearly broke him.

 

 

When he came back with the cup of water she had requested, he saw Lincoln trying to pull her off of Kellerman. Flinging the cup aside, he grabbed her, trying to calm her, trying to keep his arms around her, though she was not easily subdued. Her height made it difficult for him to really overpower her, simply because her limbs were either kicking at him or pushing against the restraining arm at her waist in an attempt to free herself. The demonized movements of her body surprised him, not because he didn’t know she was capable of righteous anger, but because this wasn’t the Sara that healed people. He knew she wouldn’t be able to deal with cold-blooded murder on her conscience, no matter how much Kellerman deserved it.

Leaving them all in the train car a moment later, he assumed she went down to the restroom. He struggled against the feeling of pride and the air of arousal that her demonstration had left behind. She was so much more than he could have ever dreamed when he had looked at those black and white pictures and so flippantly categorized her as a good match. Knowing she had been through unspeakable things at Kellerman's hands, and seeing her behavior just now showed him she could hold her own with any man. She outshined him in every way.

He had known it for a while, but when he went down to the bathroom to check on her and she sent him away, he admitted to himself that he was madly in love with her. He didn’t just respect her, or just find her attractive, or just want to have sex with her. He didn’t just feel guilty that her life had been turned upside down by his plans, or by a corrupt government. He wanted her to be his, to belong to him, to choose him. He wanted this whole crazy thing they were going through to be over so he could actually earn a place in her life. 

Unable to stop himself, he went back to the bathroom door a second time, knocking gently. This time she let him come in, and again it felt like a royal decree, the admittance he didn’t know he’d be afforded.

"The first thing they tell you when you take the job…" she cleared her throat nervously. "Is…um…never to fall in love with an inmate." It wasn’t what she said, but how her eyes came up to his after she’d said it. She looked child-like—girlish—as though she had just told a boy on the playground that she had a crush on him. The weight in his chest lifted suddenly and he thought maybe it was all worth it for this moment, her confession so like his own feelings.

He couldn’t help but kiss her, again and again, and she allowed it, encouraged it, wrapping her arms around him as though she couldn’t bear the space between them either. Moments before she'd emptied herself of the burden of her feelings for him, she had asked him another important question: "You think you can get it all back?" 

As his tongue slid along hers and his hips nestled between her spread legs, he knew the answer. He didn’t want it all back. He only wanted her. Forever.

 

 

In the car, waiting for Henry to return, he glanced at her and noticed the reddened area on her chin where his unshaven face had rubbed at hers during those stolen moments on the train. Her lips looked so soft and sweet and he could easily remember their taste and press against his own. The longer they sat there though, the more he wondered if he’d ever get a chance to kiss her anywhere else and leave whisker burn on her skin like the wake of heat she'd left in his body by confessing her love.

If this worked, and really, that was what he wanted, then he would go back to prison for who knew how long. He wouldn’t have an opportunity to share anything more with Sara than the small moments he’d already had, and although he fought against that selfish thought—because they'd all be in danger for the rest of their lives if Henry Pope didn't find what they hoped to be inside that cigar club—it ate at his core.

As she held his hand and her thumb whisked back and forth over his skin, he treasured it far more than any man could ever treasure something so small. Under normal circumstances, that touch wasn’t even foreplay, but he considered it as much of a consummation of their relationship as anything ever could be.

 

 

Holding her close on the small boat Chaco had found for them was more than he had even hoped for. Feeling her arms around him, squeezing him tight was something he never expected to have and it became all the sweeter because of it. Loving Sara had quickly become his guiding light, his North Star, and he vowed in that small blissful moment to never let it slip away from him. 

He didn’t need all the things his life had been before Fox River; he didn’t want any of it. He just wanted Lincoln—finally exonerated—and Sara with him. They could live on the little boat long enough to find a bigger one like the _Christina Rose_ , and they could have a freedom that many never knew; a life of traveling, the open sea and each other. They could have LJ come and meet them there and the four of them could make a life far better than the ones they’d ever had in Chicago; he was suddenly so sure of it, his head spun a little with all the possibilities.

When those ideas all ended in a gun blast, he didn’t have to think too long about what he was going to do. There was only one clear path, and Sara might not understand now, but someday she would. Someday she would understand that he couldn’t love anyone, not without being willing to give up everything for them.

"It was me!" he shouted. "It was me!"

He could hear her screaming his name and his innocence, but there was nothing else to be done.

 

 

Inside Sona’s walls, when he could manage it, he daydreamed about her. It wasn’t often, because just like Fox River, he spent the majority of his time on his feet, figuring stuff out and planning the impossible, but in the quiet moments that came few and far between, he lulled himself with her image. Her soft skin and her warm eyes, and the love he knew she felt for him. She had killed someone, the ultimate sacrifice on his behalf so that he didn’t have to watch is brother die right in front of his eyes.

Now, each day when he trudged out to the fence to tell Lincoln how little he’d been able to do, the only thing he could cling to was knowing that her life depended on him figuring it out, no matter how hard it was, no matter how unconquerable it felt. He had to do it, for Sara, for LJ. He had to make sure they got their chance. It couldn’t end like this. _It just couldn’t end like this._

"Sucre says it’s a go, tonight," Lincoln said, his eyes shifting from the fence to the guard tower to the corner of the yard where the chain-link was slowly disintegrating. 

"When we get there, Sara and LJ will be there?" he asked, noting, not for the first time, how his brother refused to look at him when he asked about the captives.

"That’s what she promised me," Lincoln said, still scanning the prison yard as though he were the one who had to run across it with two men he absolutely did not trust, one who he had to get out to get his loved ones back, the other he had to get out so he didn’t blow the whole plan with his drug-addicted-ramblings.

"I’ll see you tonight, then," he said, feeling his chest tighten painfully at the prospect.

Lincoln’s blue eyes swung back to his, their depth and intensity stealing his breath. "Tonight," he said, nodding tersely before turning and walking away.

 

 

"What the fuck?" he heard Lincoln shout as they delivered Whistler into the hands of a woman he had to glance at twice before he stopped seeing Veronica. He knew something strange was afoot because whenever he’d asked Lincoln about who this ‘handler’ was, Linc had acted oddly. _My poor brother_ , he thought. Having to deal with someone who looked like Vee, but was so unlike her in every other way chilled him to the bone.

"Sara?" Lincoln’s voice cracked, and then to his surprise, he could hear his brother crying, gut wrenching sobs that came from the deepest point inside him. He saw Sara emerge from the back of the vehicle, with LJ right behind her.

They looked all right physically, but he ran the distance between where he stood with Whistler, Mahone and Sucre to where Lincoln stood with the Veronica-look-alike, a woman whose name he didn’t even know. She lifted her gun and aimed it at his chest. "Don’t come any closer," she commanded as two men also got out of the car and grabbed Whistler. He stopped, and though it was dark, there was enough light shining from the car’s headlights that he could see Sara’s eyes. She was crying, though stoically. Of course she would be as strong as she could, no matter the circumstances.

"You bitch!" Lincoln choked. "You made me think she was dead!" 

Looking away from Sara’s face to Lincoln’s features twisted in rage, he suddenly understood all of his brother’s strange behavior. In a flash, Lincoln’s leg kicked out and up, dislodging the gun from the woman’s hand and then landing with surprising force and accuracy in her solar plexus, knocking her backward into the car, where she slid down and slumped on the ground. "Manipulate your enemy, get them to do whatever you need them to do by any means necessary," she spat wheezily from her prone position at Lincoln’s feet. "She’s alive, Lincoln, that’s all that should matter." Lincoln glared at her with so much hatred that when he bent to pick up her gun, there was little doubt in his brother's mind that he would fire it in the same area he’d planted his foot.

Sara moved towards him, obviously unafraid now that Lincoln had knocked the woman off her feet.

"Dad!" LJ shouted, running to his father.

He saw when Lincoln stopped wanting to kill her and just embraced the relief that his son and Sara were alive. He captured LJ in a tight hug, the gun gripped tightly in Lincoln’s hand where it pressed against the back of LJ’s head. "This is it, the deal is complete," he said wearily. "If you ever come near me or my family again, I’ll fucking chop _your_ head off, do you understand me?"

She slowly got to her feet, brushing dirt from her ass with the air of someone not at all conquered. She was the most bizarre person he'd ever seen, and he’d spent the last three months around some pretty strange people from Fox River to Sona. "The deal is done," she said agreeably. "You were a worthy opponent, Lincoln, as were you, Michael," she said turning to face him. "You’ll never see me again," she said, the words much like a promise.

Sara collapsed in his arms then, her tears free flowing, her arms tight around him, as though she might never let him go. He knew then he would be hard pressed to ever let her out of his sight again.

 

 

Cradling her against him, he shifts slightly to make himself more comfortable. Hammocks are comfortable, just ask Lincoln, but trying to get it just right for two people is a little tricky.

Of course, Michael Scofield has faced much more serious situations than this. Or so he believes as he breathes deeply, taking her scent into his lungs.

Sara snuggles her face into his shoulder and sighs contentedly. Murmuring in her throat, she whispers, "I love this place." _This place_ refers to a small but modest home in Baja, Mexico.

He squeezes his arm around her shoulders and makes a sound of agreement in his throat. "My question, though, is how did you get Lincoln out of this thing?"

She laughs softly and slides her arm across his abdomen. Her fingers wrap around the edge of the hammock netting, and then she replies, "Well, first I offered him my body."

His eyes dart towards the house and he can see Lincoln on the back porch with LJ. They are sitting at the patio table playing Gin, and he can tell by the look on his brother’s face that LJ must be winning. "He didn’t take you up on that, huh?" he asks.

"Shocking, I know," Sara says, the laughter in her voice almost too much for his heart. She’s happy and content and alive, and though they've had a year of normalcy, he’s pretty sure he needs nothing more than that to be endlessly happy himself. "Then I offered him money, but that didn’t work either."

"I need to have a serious talk with my brother," he huffs. "Turning down sex _and_ money? What is his problem?"

"He claimed that nothing was better than lying in the hammock."

Muttering under his breath, Michael disagrees. "Uh, sex is always better—maybe he’s not doing it right?"

Sara’s head tips back on his shoulder and her eyes sparkle mischievously. "I’ll leave that to you to find out."

"So," Michael says, running his fingers over her lips and chin lightly. "How’d you get him out of the hammock?"

Dropping her head back down so that her hair rubs against Michael’s chin, she murmurs, "I dumped him out of it. I leaned over him, and I think he actually thought I was going to kiss him—I ought to be offended by the look of horror on his face—and I grabbed the sides of the hammock, spun-yanked him, and boom!—dumped him."

Surprised, he starts laughing, finding the humor in his wife somehow wrangling his brother out of his favorite napping spot more hilarious than just about anything ever. As his giggles recede, Sara continues her story. "While he was cussing me out and dusting himself off, I climbed in the hammock."

Michael’s laughter eases as he imagines Lincoln’s retaliation, because he knows his brother too well to think he’d just let a girl best him, even one he loved as much as his sister-in-law. "And how did you manage to evade him dumping you out similarly?"

Sara leans her head back again, so that their eyes can touch, but she doesn’t look up at him, instead she looks toward the porch where the other two are still playing cards. "I told him something that made him not want to hurt me."

"What’s that?" Michael asks, wondering what sort of manipulation his brother has been subjected to.

As she says, "I told him you were going to be a daddy," her eyes cut up to his face, and he’s strongly reminded of being on the train with her such a long time ago now, though for some reason her words don’t make as much sense as they did that day. He still has the need to kiss her, but really, when has that desire ever evaporated? 

"Aren’t you going to say anything?" she asks, her white teeth edging down into her bottom lip anxiously.

Michael, always considered to be too smart, too sharp, too aware of everything around him, stares dumbfoundedly at her. Did she say what he just heard, or was there some sort of mistake? "What?" he asks, because he feels a little shell-shocked. Only 10 minutes ago, Lincoln had come to find him inside their house, telling him Sara was swinging in the hammock and that she wanted him to join her. Now, suddenly the look of wolfish anticipation on his brother’s face made sense, and glancing back at the patio, he sees Lincoln and LJ both watching them. They aren’t pretending to play cards anymore, but instead look raptly towards the gently swinging hammock.

"Michael, you’re going to be a father. Lincoln didn’t dump me out of the stupid hammock because I’m pregnant! Good grief, I never expected I’d have to spell it out for you! Remember, I quit taking my birth control pills about a month ago?" Sara hefted herself up, her elbow digging into his armpit.

Snapping from the shocked fog as quickly as he had disappeared into it, he pulls her back to him, saying rapidly, "No, no, I get it…I’m just—I’m happy, really, I just—you caught me by surprise. Sara…" he says warningly when her eyes shine with tears and she struggles against his hold. "Don’t. Don’t be upset. A baby. Our baby. I couldn’t be happier that my brother didn’t dump you out of the hammock. Honestly." He slides his free hand down to her stomach, touching her reverently.

She stares skeptically into his face for a few moments before finally giving in and letting him pull her head back on to his chest. By laying back down she concedes one point, but the stiffness in her frame indicates he has not been fully forgiven. Smoothing his hand up her back, he dips his fingers under her shirt to rub her skin softly before he asks, "How far along are you?"

"Not very. I’m going to see the doctor tomorrow," she says, her voice muted against the material of his shirt.

"Can I come with you?" he asks, treading lightly.

"You better," she mutters, finally relaxing as his fingers steal over the crevice of her spine and then dip slightly, easing under the waistband of her shorts. Once his hand is inside her panties and cupping her bottom warmly, she flips over, pushing herself up on to his chest. The hammock swings with her movement and Michael waves his other hand at his peeping brother and nephew in an effort to get them to stop staring.

Sara lifts her head and their eyes meet. "You’re really okay about it?" she asks, watching him carefully.

"Yes," he says emphatically. "We agreed we were ready. How could I not be happy about it? Like I said, you just caught me off guard." Using the hand on her bottom, he moves her forward so she can feel his growing erection. "See? Excited."

She shifts against him subtly and then whispers against his lips, "I guess I should have told you in a more private place, huh?"

Michael’s eyes sting with tears, caused by the happiness he knows because she is in his life. He shakes his head. "No. This is perfect."


End file.
